Writing Templates
SowComposer templates are written in a lightweight, human readable format that's easy to understand. You just have to understand some basic syntax, and you're on your way. The best way to figure out how to write templates is to take a look at the example templates in the _templates directory of this repository.
The components of a template in SOW Composer are:
A section is a part of the SOW. Typical sections are "Deliverables" or "Requirements" or "Personnel Requirements" -- whatever sections of a SOW you can think of that are not "Background/Scope" which is included by default on all SOWs in SOWComposer.
An item is a selectable component of a section. An example of an item is "XHTML/CSS Templates" for the section "Deliverables" of the template "Website Design". Items must be inside sections, with their title being marked by a hash on a new line.
You can add a brief, human readable description intended to educate writers of SOW templates about what an item is. A description of XHTML/CSS Templates would be "The files you need in order to do display your website on web browsers." This text does not appear in statements of work, it's intent is to help SOWComposer users understand what they are selecting. Item Descriptions appear underneath Items with a double hash. (##).
Item Text is the text information that will appear in the statement of work.
Tags are the "fill in the blank" component of SOWComposer, and enable you to create custom variables inside of your item descriptions for people to fill out for themselves. A tag has three components: the name of the variable, what the variable is, and a description of that variable. These three items are delineated by pipes (|) and contained by curly brackets.
Put together a section of the statement of work looks like this:
---REQUIREMENTS---
# Online Portfolio
## Vendor must have an online portfolio viewable by the public (on YouTube, Vimeo, etc)
### The {{AGENCY | Agency | Your Agency }} {{PROGRAM_OFFICE | Program Office | Your Program Office }} requests that you have your portfolio for public review online.
# Basic Security Clearance
## Vendor's employees must submit to basic security clearance requirements.
### Contractor and Contractor’s employee must submit to name and fingerprint check. For all employees proposed by Contractor to work on this project must provide their name, date of birth and social security number. The security vouchering process may take up to 48 hours to complete
To see more samples, check out the _templates section of the repository.
To contribute a template to SOWComposer, simply fork this repository, add your templates to the _templates directory, and send us a pull request. Understandably, If messing around with git isn't your thing, you can also email rfpez@sba.gov and we will add them for you.